


Motivation

by V_mum



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU Good Future, Entirely Peter Parker's Point of View, Gen, Hero Psychology, Lots of Hindsight and Thought-Repetition, Minor Dissociative Behavior, Mutant Body Dysphoria (very mild), Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Peter Park is 20, Stream of Consciousness, Teen Psychology, Tony Stark Lives, commission, possible body horror?, stream of thought
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:00:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_mum/pseuds/V_mum
Summary: And then Tony had asked that dreaded question.Why was Peter Parker doing this?The first answer in Peter’s head, of course, was that he was not. Spiderman was doing it.So why was Spiderman doing it, then?When the two questions were put in juxtaposition, everything suddenly had this eye-blinding contrast. Why was Spiderman being a hero? Why was Peter supporting Spiderman?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Motivation

Spiderman is a hero.

Spiderman is also listed as a B-Class Avenger, these days. If you asked the right person who knew the right information.

And being an Avenger was something both Peter Parker, and Spiderman, have wished and aspired and daydreamed about for literal years.

For six of those years, Spiderman has been a hero; or at the very least, the best and closest to a hero that he could be. It took a bit of time to be worthy of a title like “Hero”.

A 14 year old kid too afraid to use the new-found super strength to actually punch a purse snatcher because he was scared to shatter a grown man’s skull isn’t quite a hero, yet. 

And it did take him a good 4 months to develop the first  _ useful  _ combat-version of the web fluid, and another month to engineer a more reliable version of the web shooter. 

For  _ most  _ of six years, Spiderman has been a hero; even if for a part of that, he’d been a hero in development.

_ Peter Parker _ had never been a hero. 

Peter Parker was Peter Parker, even at the sparkling age of 20, the ‘Peak of his Youth’ as Tony Stark called it.

It was something Spiderman intended to  _ stay _ that way. That Peter Parker would  _ stay  _ Peter Parker.

In a grim sort of way, even as young as 15, Peter recognized that it would stay that way, at the very least, until May passed. That these two very different lives would stay different, separated by a realm of impossibility, until she wasn't here anymore.

The separation of Peter and Spiderman had been a natural, immediate one. 

Peter hadn’t actually  _ considered  _ telling May at all, before beginning to hide it. He never even  _ thought  _ to tell her the truth before the first time he lied to her for hero-related things. 

Peter remembers the first time he lied to his aunt- it was after the accident- the bite- whatever you call it. He’d gotten  _ really  _ sick, and being a nurse, May would have wanted to take him to the hospital if she knew how bad it was. But Peter was rapidly adjusting to enhanced senses of sight and sound and smell- and a trip to the hospital would have been awful. The smell of blood and antiseptic, the but of the lights and machinery, the brightness and shinny surfaces, the sound of every cough and sneeze and cry of pain. It would have been terrible- much worse than the spasming muscles and the nausea and sneaking out his window to throw up in the dumpsters in the alley. Anything to make it seem less like it was. 

He was a teenager in panic, because he was  _ really really sick _ , and yet something in his body was changing he didn't understand and it certainly wasn't going to be  _ normal _ . He knew as soon as he saw the arachnid that bit him that it wasn't going to be  _ normal  _ for a very long time- its twisted body and legs in-uniform and mutant, its color an unnatural shade of red and blue and its many eyes large, white, and unsettling. It would later be an inspiration to his costume and his future suits- the same cobalt blues and sharp red that burned into his memory when he saw the spider for the first time, slowly crawling down his arm like something that should have survived whatever had deeply, deeply altered it. It was a monster of a thing. 

He wonders endlessly why he thought killing it was a good idea. Why he, tiny genius he was at 14, didn’t capture it for- for antivenom purposes. He hadn’t known it had bitten him yet- the bite itself and been painless, and Peter never  _ found  _ where it had sunk its two misshapen fangs into his skin. But he should have been more cautious- to catch it in case this obviously escaped lab experiment in the middle of his field trip  _ had  _ bitten him or his fellow classmates on field trip. If there had been  _ others _ , loose, even…

But, no. 14 year old Peter Parker panicked and squished it. He’s know idea why it was ever created, for what purpose or experiment the labs had been working on. But he killed it and in some fit of panic, washed it down the restroom sink. 

Another dangerous choice. The thing was a radioactive corpse that gave him superpowers. It’s body, if it still exists 6 years later, could be a ticking time bomb somewhere in the sewers even now. Waiting for something to find it. Peter Parker, now 20, could have a terrible match in the form of a mutated sewer gator.

That’s almost funny, but it’s a real threat he’s considered for the last few years. What an animal, bitten by his spider, might have been like instead of him, a human with the brain power to control the changes. 

His first lie was to May the next morning. 

But that night, he felt everything changing, long before he spoke to her. 

His muscles were jerking and contracting sporadically. He’d thrown up the night before out his window. His vision was blinding and his skin swept with sweat and every pore feeling like it had been jabbed with small, imperceptible needles. The vertebrae in his spine felt almost like they were separating and every other joint felt foreign and like it were developing a mind of his own. 

Peter Parker would find out later that his constrictive muscles had drastically strengthened, more than the extenders had. His natural resting pose had gone from a slack-shouldered teenager with hands in his pocket and manspread legs- to tightly crossed arms, pulled in shoulders, legs crossed and curled inward. Sometime when Peter was 17, Mr. Stark would joke that Peter slept in the tightest fetal position he’d ever seen- they’d been on a longer flight together for a diplomatic Avengers-type mission with Peter there to “Learn and Observe”. Peter had deadpanned at Tony for a moment and acknowledged him with a “That’s how spiders  _ work,  _ Mr. Stark. Don’t you know anything about Hydrolics?”

Peter Parker gave Tony Stark a long biology lesson about how Spider Limbs don’t have two muscle categories for movement, like large animals. They have the muscles that pull in- but to move out, they pump blood like fluid hemolymph along their sealed-tight bodies. Peter continued to theorize to stark that, should he ever loose an entire arm, Peter probably wouldn’t be able to move, because his body now needed the same pressure inside it to force outward motion. 

Tony hated the very  _ thought of this _ , the Hydrolic force of it all shouldn’t  _ work  _ in a creature as big as a human- It shouldn't support movement of the scale at all, let alone actually support his weight- and Peter laughed. Because he still had  _ bones and muscles _ , Mr. Stark, the Hyrolic function was mostly a force that pressed in his joints and the hollows of his body. He informed Mr. Stark that he was certainly fine- as long as he didn’t lose and  _ arm or a leg _ , because his body needs both the human parts, and the spider parts, to move now. 

Tony still hates it, and it’s been two years. He did, however, implement emergency valve cauterizations in Peter’s suit, in the arms and legs. If Peter ever lost a lim, it should be sealed as quickly as real stark tech could do it. Hopefully to reduce loss of movement. 

It was only one of the many changes that swarmed peter on the first night, the moving pressure and force in his joints, the sporadic leaps in pulse, the mind numbing pain of his senses.

He would be sick for two weeks, undergoing unreal changes. But the first morning- he told may he felt only the flu. He downplayed every sickness and every change and every pain impulse - he hid the vomiting and the senses the sprouting new things like the awful spider hair. 

He could have just been dying- but he still didn’t say anything, and he was lucky, because he adapted and survived.

He wonders, now, wondered what that meant of the  _ character _ of young Peter Parker- if that sudden baseless secrecy was a trait of dishonesty, disloyalty, or disrespect. 

But young Peter Parker hadn't thought about anyone's safety yet, at the time- only that dizzying changes to his body and senses and mind were something to be kept secret. 

Kind of like a second puberty? 

Maybe that's what it had shown in Peter Parker at age 14-  _ immaturity _ . Like an embarrassed teenager hitting puberty, starting to lock their bedroom door and suddenly nervous about their own skin. 

Except he wasnt just a sweaty preeteen; he was a full teenager, one that was sticking to brick walls, ceiling fans, and even his own clothes uncomfortably. 

The finite hairs- thin to a microscopic level, split at the tips into multiple little surfaces, and charged with static his body produced- these finite little things let him stick his entire body to any surfaces. Tiny little hairs, which split into little triangle-like branches, and even pushed their way through his clothes and his suit like invisible tiny needles through gaps in thread, and his overbearing visual inputs used to make him so unbearably uncomfortable looking in mirrors or down at his body, even fully clothed, because he could  _ see them there _ .

It's hard to go from simple human eyesight to the sharp visual awareness of billions of little spiney spider-hairs, erect and ready to grab, protruding between the knit of your shirt, sticking out of the denim in your jeans, even weaving their way through the rubber in your shoe heals; as though they were finer than even elements of air. 

May noted after two years post-bite that Peter had started burning through shoes. That the rubber wore down and broke up and cracked until they were essentially useless. 

That  _ could _ be contributed to Peter Parker’s jump into an active lifestyle. But he also wondered, even now at 20 years old, if the finite hairs pushing their way through contributed to their faster decay. The nature of thread and fabric let the small spines through just fine, but maybe he would be cursed for the rest of his super-hero life with shoes that started to leak in gutter water when they were barely 6 months old?

It was a minor inconvenience Peter never noticed until years after adjusting to the change in his body- and it really did  _ take  _ years to adjust to looking at himself in a mirror, and not immediately having his eyes focus on the foreign, nearly invisible hairs and their split little ends jutting from what felt like every cell in his now ever-stranger body. 

But he got used to that, eventually. 

Peter Parker got used to everything. 

The branching micro-hair needles, the intense vision input. The superhuman physical strength and the overloading range of sound. The impulsive light-speed reaction times to dangers that hadn’t happened yet, and the suspicious and inexplicable burst of speed and strength and joint flexibility. Even the rapid healing and general all-around resistance to damage. 

He got used to it all, in the end. 

Until all the changes were invisible when they needed to be, and obvious when Spiderman needed them.

He had every intention of staying the  _ same  _ Peter Parker he’d been when he was 13, at  _ least  _ as long as May was around.

Maybe then, he would have dreamed of a life more like other Avengers, more  _ fully _ .

Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk. Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. Tony Stark, aka Iron Man.

Three names among the Avengers that  _ unquestionably  _ had Peter Parker and Spiderman’s respective respect. 

Maybe when May had lived happily, and Peter Parker didn’t have family to protect, he would  _ consider  _ being  _ Peter Parker, aka Spiderman _ .

That was the resolution Peter had come to when he’d actually stopped to  _ think  _ about why he  _ was  _ hiding his newfound talents. 

He’d still been 14, in the midst of his third week post-accident, testing his latest prototype webshooter.

He’d taken the leap of faith, with every confidence in this web shooter that had worked perfectly on the ground, and it was time to test if his  _ body  _ was up to the task of using it in the air.

Peter Parker had known enough about physics and human biology to know that a  _ normal  _ person with  _ normal  _ human joints shouldnt be able to swing their body weight by the single arm, let alone withstand the hard snaps of a web pulled taught. The tensile strength of his web aside, a normal person’s joints were a different beast.

He’d picked a building plenty tall but plenty quiet for his first webshooter leap.

Fully prepared for the possibility that he may end up pulling his entire arm out of his socket and maybe ripping some tendons if his whole web-slinger spider concept didn't work out. Sure, it was probably going to  _ hurt _ , but he’d been a rough and tumble, clumsy kid and he’d popped an arm out of his socket before, and at the time he’d also broken his leg. 

(Rolling down hills freely works great in movies, young Peter Parker had learned, but not always in reality; where hills could absolutely be too steep and hid dangerous rocks in the grass.)

Spiderman hadn’t had a cemented name yet, because he was still testing that spider theme out, but it was still Spiderman, if unnamed, that took the leap of faith off the building armed with the knowledge of how Peter Benjamin Parker had learned to pop an arm back into place when he was 10 with the help of his uncle. 

The first time Spiderman jumped, it was only fair that the panic kicked in with the vertigo of the ground rushing at who-knows-how-fast toward his face.

Peter Parker knows for a fact it could not, physically, have been faster than 120 miles per hour, as an average human body reaches terminal velocity at 128 miles per hour. Peter Parker is an unusually dense 14 year old for mutation reasons at 155 pounds, and his chosen building is 6 stories high, 89 feet tall.

Peter Parker  _ measured _ , and made the calculations, over and over and over again. Peter Parker could not account for super-human durability, because he’s never survived a fall since the bite, not yet. 

But he knew from simple velocity calculations that the fall could _ not  _ take longer than two and a half seconds, roof to street surface, and yet it felt as though it had taken at least a minute from the point he pressed the trigger on his shooter, and the point of when webbing actually escaped the nozzle, and Peter Parker thought with every neuron in his teenage brain that he’d miscalculated, and there was no way the shooter would be fast enough to catch him with a shrink of fake-spider’s-silk.

He  _ knew  _ that his body could not exceed 50 miles per hour, and yet it felt like the asphalt was rushing at him with all the speed of a jet engine at 575. 

He was certain he would meet some painful end for the entirety of the 2 seconds he  _ was  _ falling.

But his prototype worked.

Peter swang by web, every fine hair on his hand gripping his web for dear life, and his arm’s socket did not sound any alarming pops as it tensed with hydraulic force to extend his arm.

He bruised his nose when he clapped, frozen with exhilarating adrenaline and fear, into a wall at just-shy of 50 miles an hour. 

Which, if you were curious, was around about twice the speed and force of a professional boxer, or so one Peter Parker could have told you. 

When Peter was about 18, he clocked the punches of Spiderman to around 228 miles an hour, with an “Impact Feel” of about 390, as Tony calculated on his new hero-rating system. Tony and Bruce, assisting for individual research purposes at the time, had whistled appreciatively at Spiderman’s score. 

While the swing of the Hulk absolutely had Spiderman beat in terms of damage done per square inch, due to an already bullet-proof tough skin, Peter topped every Avenger they tested in hit speed, and beat out Captain America for second place in damage. 

This would, however, only apply to the inanimate target. 

Later they mimicked the same test using real people (in Stark Tech Super Protection gear, of course). The aim of the test was, of course, precision- we want you to hit this person at exactly this amount of force, try not to deviate,  _ go for it _ . 

Maybe it was because Captain America had lived through a war, but he solidly outmatched Peter in force against someone sentient. Peter curbed every swing that clocked above what Tony said was 26 miles per hour, no matter how many times Tony assured him these special gears he’d whipped up could take at least 110, let alone the goal of trying to get Spiderman to hit someone at 70. If it went anywhere over 26, Spiderman was pulling back or missing or curving down to the ground instead, and it was  _ hard  _ to make any change to that.

As much as Peter Parker could thrive on calculations, Spiderman had always been a by-the-feel-of-it fighter. And swinging higher than this apparent force limit Spiderman had found, psychologically, was exceedingly difficult. It took all day to work up a punch around 40, by which Steve clapped Spiderman on the shoulder and offered he could try punching  _ him  _ instead of the Shield Assistant in the special suit.

A similar issue persisted. Spiderman, in the end, wasn’t able to punch Captain America anywhere near 110 miles per hour, as they initially tried to coax him toward, and in the end only clocked up to 68. 

Which may be a contributing factor to why Peter Parker’s second place level physical strength didn’t often surmount to more than a  _ tie  _ with any of the other Avengers in a training fight. 

And a big contributing fact as to why, despite being one of the physically strongest and most active avengers, Spiderman continued to settle in B-tier Avenger call list status, even at 6 years old, and Peter Parker at a resounding 20.

Whatever strengthened his spider-strong body then in the present, Peter still clapped into a wall at about 50 miles an hour in the past with all that same strength in him to resist the damage. The same super-human ability which strengthened his shoulder joints must have additionally strengthened his cartilage, like his nose, because surely, while his arm should have dislocated, his nose should have broken at that impact, if not the rest of his face completely.

After everything, Peter sat as his nose bled in an alleyway. At the time, he recognized that if his shoulder  _ had  _ dislocated, he had no way to know even his spidery-powered-grip could have held the web, then. 

He calculated everything, and yet he had known so little that the entire first experience had left him totally mystified, rather than feeling accomplished in what he’d just managed.

He could have slipped, if he underestimated the grip strength of his hand and the invisible gripping hairs in his palm. If his joint had given out.

Or worse, his web shooter could have misfired. The new nozzle could have jammed, or the trigger could have snapped.

Or  _ worse _ , his first attempt at a swing could have shot and missed, even though he’d been practicing his accuracy nonstop. Or he could have miscalculated the amount of web he’d need to fire, no matter how long he’d stood there doing the calculations in his head, the math of the arc and the velocity and the angle and the wind variables that in those days still affected his slower web shooters. He could have even held the firing trigger just a millisecond shy of how long he needed, even full knowing how long it needed to be, because Spiderman and Peter Parker would come to learn just how imprecise the measurements were on that shooter’s nozzle design, and they’d replace it 6 times to get it more and more precise before even  _ meeting  _ Tony Stark.

Spiderman  _ would  _ miscalculate and miss and slip and all sorts of errors would happen. Spiderman  _ would  _ hit the ground from even greater heights than 6 stories up. 

But Spiderman hadn’t  _ yet  _ hit the ground from a bad jump. 

And in the moment of his first free fall swing, Peter wondered if he would have  _ died  _ if he’d misfired or was off even a hair.

Would he have died, and would Peter Parker have disappeared without a word? Would May ever know he was dead, given he would have died in an alley over a mile from home with no form of identification on him? 

Spiderman wasn't yet named and Peter Parker wondered if he should tell his Aunt for the first time since everything started to change. Should he have told her- should he  _ tell  _ her now? Where he was, what he was doing, what he was planning, what he was becoming?

Peter Parker thought about his heroes, and the only examples he had to guide these choices.

All three heroes in the world that he admired, he admired by name. And that was the first thing he thought about. And how he  _ wanted  _ May to be proud of him. He might even like it if his School or the Neighborhood or the City was  _ proud  _ of him. 

He started walking home, ready to tell his Aunt he was on his way to being a hero. A super one. That he’s  _ super talented  _ now. That he was just like Tony Stark, who Peter knew by name. Just like Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers.

The first thing that made him hesitate was explaining that he had lied to her in the first place.

Which, really must have highlighted the immaturity in his 14-year-old self, that the first worry that occurred to him and made his certain footing falter was that he would have to admit to his aunt he had lied.

And of course when he admitted he had lied, it’d become apparent he’d been  _ sneaking out _ for  _ months _ . And getting into  _ fights _ \- with, of course, criminals. That he’d learned how to punch people, and was now  _ punching _ people, even if he preferred webbing people instead of punching them. 

(Even 20 years old, Peter prefers to use webs against non-supered humans than his own physical strength, because the deadliness of his punch had never gone away, only grown more true. And human error might one day disrupt Spidermans by-the-feel psychological limit. And any normal human struck at the 50 miles per hour, twice that of a record-punching boxer, could very well kill someone if they weren't a mutant like him.)

He kept moving forward, and from there- from the possible punishments for rule breaking, he spiraled.

Should he concoct a story to lie again? That he just got his powers  _ tonight _ ? So he didn’t have to admit he’d kept everything a secret, and didn't have to admit he was lying?

If he was going to keep lying, what was the point in telling her?

Why was he considering lying, if he wanted to be honest?

_ Because I don't think she’ll understand. _

He knew the answer to his own question even then, but he wouldn’t face the real reality of that answer for a while.

Instead, he only thought she just wouldn’t understand  _ the greater good  _ of what he had to do, now.

Tony Stark is one of Peter Parker’s heroes. 

Peter’s read the tabloids- he doesn't  _ bother  _ to read the exaggerated tabloids, actually, but he reads headlines and covers at a glance with his horrible curse of sensory intake, and at the time, Tony Stark’s girlfriend supposedly left him because he was too busy being a superhero.

It’s a tabloid. You can't take it at its word. Peter knew that.

But Dr Banner is a known shut-in, an incredibly non-social hero. He’s alone, and understandably- everyone knows the Hulk is one hero you can't exactly  _ approach _ if you see him in ‘uniform’. 

Peter’s respected Bruce Banner ever since he  _ heard  _ about the Hulk’s… host? And it has to be smart, to keep people away from something dangerous. Another part of you that they shouldn’t be involved with. It was only  _ logical _ .

The unnamed hero, Spiderman, is already... Something  _ other  _ than Peter Parker. And he wants May to be proud of Peter Parker, but May can't be close to Spiderman. 

Peter couldn't hug May for 3 months after the bite.

He was afraid to crush her with his terrible, cruel strength.

And Captain America. 

Captain America gave up  _ everyone  _ for being a Hero, because Steve Rogers was the real hero. He gave up his body to the sciences and human advancement. And he gave up his life and his time, expecting death. 

Captain America, who Peter Parker sees on TV in school, lost everyone he knew, everything he knew, for being Steve Rogers.

May wouldnt understand that.

May would be in danger.

If Peter Parker became “ _ Peter Parker, Spiderman _ ,” then he would be giving up May. Because inevitably, that’s what heros do. 

And the worst part of that realization was that Peter couldn't say  _ how  _ he would have to give her up. 

Whether she wouldn't be able to  _ handle  _ that he was a superhero- what fights and arguments would come about already just because Peter was breaking  _ curfew _ ? He could lose her to the semantics that he couldn’t be  _ just  _ Peter Parker anymore.

Whether he would hurt her himself, some day. Or some day, when Spiderman was a  _ real  _ superhero with  _ enemies _ , what ways might  _ they _ hurt her? 

If Peter Parker was Spiderman, would Peter Parker have to choose the fate of the city or the world over his aunt one day?

By the time Peter’s back home that same night, with a heavily bruised nose and face, but neither  _ broken _ , crawling up the wall to his window… he’s made the opposite decision he started to come home with.

This is a lie he’ll keep. For May’s sake.

Because then, Spiderman doesn't  _ have _ to give up May Parker. Spiderman is something entirely removed from Peter Parker, in his head, and Spiderman doesn’t have a May to worry about. 

That way, if Peter ever had to give up May some day,  _ she _ won't have to know  _ Peter _ wasn’t choosing her. That whatever else out there wasn't more important to him than she was. 

And then, he could stop being Peter Parker and be Spiderman, who never had an aunt May, if he needed to be. If only for a little bit. Then he could  _ be _ Peter Parker, Spiderman. And his Aunt would die happy that her nephew loved her more than  _ anything else  _ in the world, would give up the universe for her. 

But Spiderman can’t, because he’s a hero, and he has to protect the city, the world, the universe.

This is what inevitably still separates Spiderman from the other Super-Human Heros of The Avengers, even as late as 20 years old. 

That Spiderman the superhero is still a separate person.

In every waking moment, technically he’s still Spiderman, but he’s also the separate entity of Peter Parker. 

He still went to school and graduated. He still walked the sidewalk alone. He still lived in an apartment. He still ate at a sub shop, and still had to pay his way in rent. He was still a person completely removed from every accomplishment and failure he’d ever made in a mask and a name he made up himself.

And for a very long time that was  _ actually _ only the span of half a year, that was the truth. For 6 months, Peter Parker and Spiderman were completely separate, operating entities, and it was going to  _ stay  _ that way as long as it needed to. As long as May needed it.

Then the biggest wrench in that plan, that waiting game. Of course, it was his childhood hero, his ideal, his inspiration- and in less than a year, only six months after the bite, only a  _ month _ since he resolved to wait.

He probably would have  _ loved  _ to meet Tony Stark, Iron Man, as  _ Spiderman _ .

He never wanted to meet Tony Stark, Iron Man, as Peter Parker- not, at least- not for  _ years _ . 

A strange car parked on the curb that did  _ not  _ belong in queens, and a billionaire on his couch, and a conversation in his bedroom referring to him as  _ both  _ of the two people he’d carefully separated out in his head for the time being. It was the biggest little fuckup to weasle its way into the carefully structured gears of the mechanism that separated out Peter and Spiderman.

It did not dampen his respect or idolization for Tony Stark, Iron Man. 

But it was the first time that both Spiderman and Peter Parker would acknowledge that _ Tony Stark, Iron Man, _ his hero,  _ did not understand _ . 

That they were not the same kind of hero or protector, or whatever they were. 

And that was part of the  _ drive _ , when it was just that first wall between them. It felt like a wall Spiderman had to climb to get to Tony Stark, Iron Man’s Level. It felt like something Peter Parker had to overcome, to be able to be… worthy, somehow, of being  _ Peter Parker, Spiderman _ . 

He wanted to  _ be _ like Tony Stark. 

He wanted the confidence. He wanted people to be proud of him. And he wanted to  _ save  _ and to  _ protect _ more than anything. 

In hindsight, his first  _ job  _ for the Avengers wasn’t saving anyone at all. It was all politics and bitterness.

But it did give Spiderman the opportunity to associate with his idols, with the people he had dreamed of being with, side by side. Sure, he was fighting one of his big three, and multiple  _ other  _ avengers. 

But he was on their  _ level _ . He was fighting them like equals. And for a 15 year old, that's everything, to be the same level, that maybe he could be  _ this  _ kind of hero, too.

I mean, he  _ caught _ the fist of The Winter Soldier. And  _ got up _ after a full force shield smash from Captain America (who at the time, was still the second strongest avenger, because Spiderman hadn't out measured him yet.)

In hindsight, Spiderman was fighting on the far wrong side of that fight.

Peter Parker was not Spiderman.

Peter Parker was not, and never was registered, during the lifespan of the Sokovia Accords. 

Because when Peter Parker and Spiderman were confronted with Tony Stark, Iron Man, presenting them with the fact they were one and the same person and an offer to work for a greater good, Peter offered a single condition. It was a condition that he had to demand, even at the possibility it would make Tony Stark walk right out that door and rescind this “Grant” and the offer of a lifetime, to be a real hero.

That the Mask stays  _ on _ , and that Peter Parker and Spiderman’s connection would stay  _ dead  _ to the rest of the world. Even to the recently exposed Shield, even to the Avengers, even to May, even to whoever Tony trusted most, it would stay  _ dead _ .

In further  _ hindsight _ , Peter should have had a problem with the fact Tony Stark accepted that condition, even if Spiderman’s Spider Senses never flared a warning sign.

Peter had studied all of the Accords that were made public. Peter Parker and Spiderman both knew exactly what the Accords meant. And that they were  _ signed  _ with Tony Stark, Iron Man. 

That by these Laws, Peter Parker’s identity should have been added to a list of registered sub-human names, and by enlisting Spiderman into this fight, Iron Man was breaking the very rule he was trying to stop Captain America and his own followers from fighting.

But that all  _ wasn’t  _ Spiderman’s fight. 

Spiderman was a grunt of a 15 year old and barely passed that birthday to begin with, even if he could throw fists with them all and walk away with only a black eye and a bit of bruising. 

His only fight was the one Iron Man gave him. 

When that was over, so was Spiderman's supposed involvement with everything, including his dealings with the Accords.

Maybe that was intentional. Maybe because it was a non-public fight in the first place, and maybe that was the only reason Iron Man could bring in an unregistered hero-human.

Maybe Tony was distancing himself from his mistake with Peter. Peter thought about it, a lot, after the fight. That maybe this was a secret Tony couldn’t afford to let out, too. And maybe Tony would never have a new mission for him.

Spiderman kept trying. 

The _ Avengers _ kept trying. Both factions of them. And so did Villians trying to end half of all life and countless other enemies attempting to obtain mass control. 

Peter Parker was 20 years old, and Spiderman, technically, was 6. 

Still, even after the accords had been carefully unwinded and replaced with different laws entirely, something weighed a heavy line between Spiderman and his fellow Avengers. 

And it was because he was still here, really. 

At times it felt like he was the  _ only _ one still here.

He, Peter Parker, had three  _ heroes _ which coincidentally worked in the hero game. Three people he looked up to, when he was young.

But when the accident happened, the  _ bite _ happened, and Peter Parker had to make room for Spiderman, that changed.

A kid day-dreaming about the Avengers somehow felt even more impossible and distant. The day dreams of Peter Benjamin Parker being a brilliant mind behind the Avengers, being the modern-day Howard Stark, making the greatest pieces of the Avengers into a reality?

Peter had long started the webbing before the accident ever happened. It’d been his work of over 8 months before the accident changed his perspective of how he would be helping the world. It was going to be  _ his  _ Howard Stark moment- because before  _ Tony _ Stark,  _ Howard _ Stark was his inspiration- straight from the history books in class, as early as elementary school. 

Howard Stark  _ made _ Captain America’s shield. And in part,  _ Captain America. _ Howard Stark helped stop the Nazi powers. Howard Stark helped design the rudimentary most versions of the green energy project, The Ark. He  _ practically _ invented Nitramene and Vita-Radiation as the scientific community knew them. 

He also contributed to a lot of atrocities, like the Atomic Bomb, Midnight Oil, and countless other weapons. They didn't tell his class about that in elementary school history, because Howard Stark was an American Hero. 

It was in his Current Events course in Peter’s first year of middle school that Peter learned of such atrocities- but by then, that was ok, he could stand to lose his first hero.

Because by then, Peter had Tony Stark and the  _ Avengers  _ to look up to. 

And Peter had his head so far in the clouds that he wholly believed that he would be the  _ next  _ Howard Stark, and that he would do it better, and avoid the mistakes of mass-produced weapons.

Enter the “web.” 

It wasn't a  _ web  _ at first. It was a sudo-liquid. 

He wanted to make something that would help the Avengers- catch a falling victim, cushion an impact, patch holes, keep whole buildings from collapsing, halt the conduction of electricity, retard flames. In a nod to going the opposite direction of environmental harm caused in the long run of Howard Stark’s nuclear weapons, Peter even went so far as to benchmark his invention with green means of production- and it would even  _ dissolve  _ into water and atmosphere-safe gasses, after contact with carbon dioxide for a prolonged period. 

It was going to be, what Peter hoped, the first of  _ many _ inventions that would be world-useful someday, if not wholly supportive to the endeavors of the Avengers and superheroes. A fast-acting last second option, with no dangerous consequences. 

His first invention wasn't finished, and therefor still a secret, by the time of the  _ accident _ .

Peter Parker’s vivid dreams of seeing his secret-weapon fluid working on the front lines of an Avengers battle shrank. Because he suddenly got very, very busy.

And maybe that, too, was a major difference between Spiderman, and the Avengers.

That Spiderman had to do… had to do  _ everything _ .

When the web-slingers and the now more web-like material were finished, and Spiderman was in full-swing (pun intended) after 5 months of learning to use these inhuman abilities, Peter Parker couldn’t  _ invent _ anymore. 

There was never  _ time _ .

When Peter woke up in the morning, he could hear the firetrucks downtown fighting an apartment fire. He’d rush past his aunt who was just off her night shift, with his suit in his school bag, crowing about how excited he was for chemistry today. Aunt May would badger him to at least eat toast before he left, and Peter had to listen to the sounds of the bread crisping in the toaster in tandem with the crack of foundations under the heat of a roaring flame and the weight of a collapsing brick wall. And then, Spiderman was rescuing people from a fire and retarding flames, and Peter Parker would get to school, and Flash would complain he smelled like charcoal and smoke and ought to learn to shower.

When Peter was in class, he had to take  _ bathroom breaks  _ every time he heard a student behind the school fence being bullied and robbed by the less than good neighborhood where it was positioned. And he had to spend classes he once  _ loved _ like physics working out new formulas, new designs, improvements- pieces for the suit, or the synthetic web, or modification to the web shooters, instead. And then he’d be interrupted, because he was in Gym now, and he would be  _ expected  _ to play soccer with his classmates, and he had to put  _ effort _ into not looking like  _ Spiderman  _ because  _ Peter Parker  _ shouldn't be too good at sports.

When Peter was in decathlon practice, it was hard to focus. He could hear the activity of a city in his ears, and that would make it hard enough to study, but he could also see every fiber in the paper of his books’ pages, and every individual grain of the oily polymer of the red dry-erase marker written on the white board- both of which from clear across the room. And, of course, hear the  _ activity  _ of every afternoon crime.

And  _ of course _ , Peter Parker was lying  _ again  _ to Aunt May, because  _ she  _ thought Decathlon practice ran two hours later than it really did. But at least Spiderman was finally out there, stopping cars from hitting buses, catching thieves and people walking into the busy roads blindly to their near-death, and helping a lost man who couldn't speak english find his way back to his hotel. 

The sun would set just as Peter Parker got home- and sometimes, it would set  _ before _ Peter would get home, and Spiderman would be texting Peter’s Aunt May that he had to stop by Ned’s place for a textbook trade off or to give Ned his notes for chem, and in reality Spiderman was eyeing down a home invasion and preparing to catch a few men breaking in, and knew he’d be running late.

On nights when May had her night shifts, Peter Parker would only be home for maybe two hours, and then Spiderman was back out there, sweeping the streets, because crime definitely does not sleep on a school night. If she was home, they’d spend time together, as much as they could, because Peter didn’t see May as much as he wished, and May always said she felt the same and he believed her, whole heartedly.

They’d have dinner and Peter would try to ignore the sound of police sirens, at least until he went to bed, and eventually May would follow, exhausted from her double shifts. And  _ then  _ Spiderman was slipping out of a window in Queens and heading for the nearest siren, and making detours for the crimes undetected along the way. 

When Tony Stark, Current Hero Number One to Peter Parker, walked into Peter’s bedroom, it had felt much the same as it had a month ago when Peter and  _ Spiderman _ had Agreed this secret would stay between them to the death of their last living family. Except now it was just Tony making this agreed compromise with Peter, to get the leeway to use his powers, and not Spiderman.

And then Tony had asked that dreaded question.

Why was Peter Parker doing this?

The first answer in Peter’s head, of course, was that he was  _ not.  _ Spiderman was doing it. 

So why was Spiderman doing it, then?

When the two questions were put in juxtaposition, everything suddenly had this eye-blinding contrast. Why was  _ Spiderman  _ being a hero? Why was  _ Peter _ supporting Spiderman?

The contrast was deafening, and polar opposite, and yet it felt ironically the same, and Peter had no idea how to answer either question, or how to even answer  _ Stark _ . 

And his confusion and uncertainty became apparent when Peter couldn’t help to start his rambling about… about what? 

About how it was hard, because he couldn’t play football, because he couldn’t before? 

It felt outlandish to say, and he hesitated with every sentence, not sure how to lead this to… what his  _ motivation to get out of the twin bed  _ was.

Tony, of course, helped him  _ word  _ that, after he got all his rambling out into the open air between them.

That Spiderman was “doing this for the little man.”

That Spiderman could do  _ everything  _ he could do, all these little powers and survive things people cant normally survive- 

If Spiderman wasn’t doing those things, and then the bad things happen, and he  _ wasn't  _ doing all these things? 

Then those bad things happened because of  _ him _ .

Spiderman doesnt save the man across the city who’s about to be shot, sometimes, because Peter Parker is eating Charoset for dessert and watching that exact same hostage situation live with May on TV News. He can’t do anything, because  _ he _ has a secret to keep. 

_ Peter  _ has a secret to keep.

Spiderman doesn't save people  _ because _ of Peter Parker. 

Spiderman isn’t stopping bad things because of Peter Parker.

And sometimes that can be _frustrating,_ even to the now 20 year old Spiderman. Because while Peter Parker was sitting at the breakfast table eating eggs and having a conversation with May, no one else was out there doing what Spiderman does.

No one else was helping the little man.

Sometimes it was maddening. 

It had to be Spiderman, because  _ only _ Spiderman was doing it.

He felt like the only one here, these days.

He was doing it because he  _ had  _ to do it. That was the combined answer Peter and Spiderman shared, at least.

He remembers when he looked Tony Stark in the face, and said why he “ _ does what he does,”  _ and he told Tony honestly, because it was the first time he’d ever spoken about it out loud to anyone. 

That he has to do it, because he knows all these bad things are happening, he knows with  _ clarity, with horrible detail _ , every time these bad things happen within  _ miles _ of him. And he can do the things he can do, and he knows the bad things are happening, so he has to  _ do something _ . 

He does what he does because he  _ has _ to.

Tony Stark was the one that said Peter Parker wants to  _ make the world a better place _ , wants to  _ help the little guy.  _

Peter liked that explanation. It’s the one he says out loud, now, not that he says it out loud to any people.

But Peter Parker is 20 years old, and he knows that  _ isn’t _ why he does any of it. Even if it’s the answer he would say, now. Even if that might have been the answer when he was still only a kid.

That's why he had the dreams, before the bite, yes.  _ Peter Parker _ wanted to help the world. He wanted to invent. He wanted to Improve everything. He wanted to help. But that was before the bite. That was before he had the  _ power. _

When Peter was 15, he couldn’t sleep at night because people were screaming and sobbing and begging. When Peter was 15 he got his first F on a test because a man was shot in the head in front of a little boy less than a  _ mile _ away from the school in the middle of his literature test. When Peter was 15, Peter didn’t jump up immediately to help someone because he was in the shower, and he thought he was only listening to the start of a robbery- and it turned into a mass shooting of 14 people in a convenience store. 

Peter Parker had wanted to make the world a better place, and that was his only drive to be an Avenger. Because Peter Parker was no real  _ hero _ .

Spiderman  _ had to help _ , because if he  _ didnt _ , people would  _ fucking die _ . People who  _ wouldn’t _ die if he helped. 

You can call that feeling,  _ that  _ reason he did it all, a lot of things. Desperation. Fear. Panic. Guilt.

Peter Parker and Spiderman both call it  _ helping the little guy  _ now _.  _

Tony Stark promptly asked Peter if he wanted to go to Germany, after they decided his answer was  _ helping the little guy _ .

Peter said he couldn’t go to Germany. And at the  _ look  _ Tony was giving him,  _ why the hell can't you?  _ Peter knew for the first time that Tony Stark, Iron Man, was not the same kind of Superhero as Spiderman.

Spiderman could only think of how many people would die here in New York that  _ didn’t have to, _ while he was gone.

His childhood hero, Iron Man, was looking him in the face and offering he come to Germany, to help with something that was obviously super-hero-level, and Peter had to look Tony Stark in the eye and say he- had  _ homework _ .

Because Tony had avoided his explanation of  _ having to help or else _ , and called it helping the little guy, and now wanted him to leave the city, and leave the little guys behind. 

Tony Stark, Iron Man, was a hero. But he wasn't the kind Spiderman was.

Spiderman had to save people. Spiderman had thousands of people on his back, at every moment.

Tony Stark, Iron Man, of course brought  _ Aunt May _ into it- and Peter had to web him to the door handle to reiterate he  _ could not tell May _ . 

It had to have been an empty threat, of course, looking back on it. Maybe. After all, Tony never would have gotten what he wanted- Spiderman’s backup- if he  _ had _ told May. 

But it was enough to give Peter a little encouragement. 

Because Peter Parker still wanted to help the world, so he had to keep Spiderman a secret. Even if Spiderman’s drive was  _ I have to help _ , Peter Parker was still 15 and wanted to help the world, make bad things stop happening in  _ other _ ways than just stopping  _ petty crimes _ . 

And this was his  _ hero _ , the best inventor on the planet, this was the  _ Avengers _ -

Peter Parker wanted to go, and he brought Spiderman into the fray of superhero politics, on the conditional Support that the two would never be connected outside of that bedroom as being the same person.

Peter Parker got an internship.

Spiderman got a start with the Avengers, and something more than constant life or death.

Maybe it's why Spiderman started to panic, after Germany. 

Spiderman was back in New York and it was early night, and the bustle was a lot on his senses after days out of the city on their “retreat”, and Tony was giving him the insane gift of a suit to replace the one Peter Parker certainly hadn’t had enough time to improve more than basic-hoodie-and-goggles-level, and maybe both Peter and Spiderman  _ needed  _ this thing the Avengers promised. Because as much as Spiderman tried, he and Peter Parker couldn’t do  _ everything _ .

Tony did say he  _ wasn't  _ an Avenger, but- regardless. Regardless, both Peter and Spiderman  _ needed  _ this.

Big battles like Germany weren’t  _ endless city of crime _ . Weren’t the endless nature of human cruelty, or the need of people driven to desperate means. They were just fights with people you couldn’t kill on the first punch, and the stakes were high in those battles, yes- but there weren't 6 different identical battles of the same risk happening in random directions you had to  _ pick  _ between to save, and hope the other people would stay alive long enough you could get there in time.

The drone of a fight, of punch Captain America before he punches You, was indescribably different from  _ there are 6 active armed robberies in 6 different zip codes and while you're stopping one, guns are going off at the others and you have to hope no ones been shot yet and that they’re only warning fires _ .

Three weeks after Germany, that night almost drove Spiderman insane. 

It’s not  _ that  _ normal for crimes to happen like that, all at once. It certainly isn't the first time Spiderman had to spread himself so thin as to have to  _ choose _ who he was going to help and hope the other survived, but he hadn't had a night feel so… gone-south as that since the first month he was trying to be a superhero, and was too scared he’d  _ really  _ hurt someone to actually stop any criminals.

At 5am, Peter Parker made a report via the phone number he’d been given, and talked about rescuing a cat from a tree, which he did do much earlier that night. And then breathlessly told a story about stopping just  _ one  _ armed robbery, and yet details from all six all packed into it, because that might as well have all been one insane moment. 

He told the story while sitting on the ledge of a tower, watching a big screen in times square detailing the news update. 

_ 16 dead, 4 under the age of 12. 6 locations, all part of an organized robbery ring. Spiderman: too late. 9 more in critical condition.  _

Spiderman found out later that Happy listened to every voicemail report Peter left to that phone number.

Spiderman and Peter both wondered if Happy ever questioned his reports. Peter didn’t make them up very often- that may have been the only time he ever lied, really. He’d omitted a lot of screw ups, of course, but it was the only time he ever lied. He wondered if Happy or Tony ever saw the news that night.

Spiderman and Peter, they both panicked. They needed the Avengers again, because that was  _ too much.  _ All of it was just  _ too much _ to do alone. It was a city of endless cycles and god, they were trying. They needed the Avengers, because the last time Spiderman worked as an Avenger, he got a suit that made saving more lives more possible. And they needed the Avengers because the  _ other heroes  _ cared about saving lives too, and they needed  _ help. _

It’s about 6 years later, and a lot of things have changed, and still are changing around them.

One of the most irritating things, though, is what  _ hasn't  _ changed. That grating feeling of being the only one here.

He- he can understand it, really. 

The Avengers are all  _ different kinds of heroes  _ than Spiderman.

Thor- Thor’s an alien, of course. He’s out there protecting the  _ universe _ , and doing whatever asgardians do. You cant rule a kingdom and be on earth every night saving people.

And Dr. Banner is improving the world in  _ better  _ ways, these days, than  _ smashing  _ things. His research is a lead in radiation- he’s out there cleaning up radioactive catastrophe caused by his once-upon-a-time hero, Howard Stark, and countless human error since. 

He can understand that they’re all different and doing what they can- but sometimes it’s just… too much. Too much, to do it all alone. 

Bad things happen, even without an endgame super villain. And they’ve all  _ saved the universe,  _ and Thanos is gone, but the world didn’t change. Spiderman tries not to think about the time during the snap, the people he could have saved but didn't exist to. When they brought back everyone who vanished in the snap, it didn’t bring back the people left who’d died because of it.

Desperate ‘Vanished’ people coming back into a changed world only spelled more desperate actions. Many people who’d lost their place in life were suddenly in need, and needy people turn to crime, and make more need.

The world was still a rough place.

It still needs heroes.

It’s why Peter arranged tonight.

It’s not the first time he’s taken an Avenger with him, on what he calls  _ patrol duty _ . 

Usually, he gets Hawkeye or Black Widow to accompany him, and that's nice. They’re low profile, and they blend in, and they’re pretty good at patrol work in ways most A-list avengers can’t be.

They’re also helpful fillers when Spidey gets called away on his own  _ enemies _ , now that he’s been in it long enough to have them. Like when Mysterio broke out of prison and went haywire again. He can put in a call, and whichever one’s available and closest, they’ll usually watch the city for him while he has to head out and deal with his own issue.

It’s times like that, that Spiderman is glad to be an  _ Avenger _ , because the  _ backup  _ is… it’s everything. If Peter’s super-metabolism ever let him catch a sickness, he could maybe enlist some help, so he could eat soup without listening to the city gone rampant. 

Sometimes, Spiderman even gets Captain America into it. Doing  _ patrol  _ work.

_ Hero  _ work.

And Spiderman and Peter both think it's… good for him, really. He’s lived through a lot of war, and a lot of grey-area battles, and sometimes having a black and white easy fight can do wonders. 

Steve usually thanks him, after patrol, in the early dawn when they finally sit down and give each other a break. Steve thanks him for doing this every night, for protecting people. 

It’s usually the highlight of Spiderman’s week. 

But tonight, he’s finally roped in the real A-lister. The A in the Avengers. 

Tonight, Peter has Tony Stark on his first real  _ Patrol shift _ .

They’re entirely different heroes. 

Peter knows this. Spiderman knows this.

Tony probably thinks this, but doesnt  _ know  _ it like Peter does.

Tonight, Spiderman is going to show Tony Stark, Iron Man, what  _ real hero work  _ is.

Because it isn’t all cheating death and fixing snaps and destroying aliens and crushing terrorists and stopping meteors and missile strikes and global warming.

As Tony Stark’s suit engines draw near with their loud engine thrusters, Peter picks out the sound of Mrs. O'Sullivan locking her usual door, out to take her cat on a walk like she does every Friday evening- without a leash, and always loses her up a tree.

Peter Parker is going to make Iron Man into a real, friendly, neighborhood hero and Tony Stark’s going to save a little old woman’s cat from a tree and walk her home, because that’s what a hero does.

He’s 20 years old, and knows his mentor like the back of his hand, and knows he’ll complain for a solid hour afterward that this is  _ not  _ what he signed up for when Peter blackmailed him out to a patrol (or else Peter would tell Pepper that Tony accidentally taught his daughter to say douchebag). 

They had all night. There will be plenty of men with guns, and screaming victims, and Peter will hear them all. But right now there's Mrs. O’Sullivan and her cat, and  _ Tony  _ can help her out while Peter goes after the two jerks waiting in the alleyway to steal a bike some poor kid’s currently trying to lock to a tree a block away.

Because that’s what heroes do. 

Next month, the city wants to hold a “Spider’s Day” and Peter isn’t sure what to do about that. The Host sent a request to the Avengers, who gave it to Tony, Who gave it to Spiderman, begging him to make a speech for his celebrated anniversary- one year after Spiderman’s return from the snap. 

Peter isn’t sure what he’s going to do. What kind of speech he could give.

The world is full of crime and he’ll fight it, because he has to, but he wants to talk about more than that.

He wants to give people hope. He wants to change the world. He wants to be a hero like spiderman, too; be his  _ own  _ Hero until he can one day be  _ Peter Parker, Spiderman. _

Tony lands his suit behind Spiderman on the roof. 

Mrs. O’Sullivan’s setting her cat down on the sidewalk with sweet old lady cooing. 

The pair of guys in the alley are whispering more excitedly, the longer it takes the kid to lock his bike.

Half a mile away, a rock smashes a window and a small burglary starts. 

A mile away, teenagers are knocking over trashcans that have been set out for trash day tomorrow.

In the exact opposite direction, he can hear his aunt in the hospital scolding a little girl about playing with the tongue depressors.

3 miles away, a dog gets out of a fence and starts running down the street, and peter will have to keep that in the back of his mind so he can catch the dog and bring him back later.

“Hey, Mr. Stark. By the way- Peter’s thinking about releasing his first invention to the world on Spider’s Day. Can you think of a snappier name than ‘ _ Industrial-Grade Rescue Sudo-Fluid, A Parker Product Inspired By Spiderman _ ’?”

**Author's Note:**

> howdy howdy! 
> 
> This has been a Commission Piece for (Anonymous)!
> 
> 8000 words (we actually clock in at about 9700), MCU Spiderman with AU twists:   
> 1, Tony is still alive and they defeated the snap without losing him or Captain America  
> 2, Future where Peter is now 20 and May still doesn't know he's Spiderman  
> 3, Something thought-based and character-based, not really looking for a full-plot, more something... inspirational  
> 40$ Total! 
> 
> My Commissions are open both on my Patreon and my Tumblr! Patreons get a discount as well as access to my Original works.   
> https://www.patreon.com/vmum  
> https://firemama.tumblr.com


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